This is some very bad news for travel publisher Lonely Planet. One of the firm's travel writers admits in a new book that he never even went to some of the countries he reviewed, that he made up most of what he wrote and that he plagiarized the rest. It's an absolute shocker to the company who has rushed to review and edit all of the books he worked on. He also dealt drugs on the side to offset his low salary and accepted free travel, in contravention of company rules.
Thomas Kohnstamm also claims in a new book that he accepted free travel, in contravention of the company's policy.
His revelations have rocked the travel publisher, which sells more than six million guides a year.
Mr Kohnstamm, whose book is titled Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?, said yesterday that he had worked on more than a dozen books for Lonely Planet, including its titles on Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean, Venezuela, Chile and South America.
In one case, he said he had not even visited the country he wrote about.
"They didn't pay me enough to go Colombia," he said.
"I wrote the book in San Francisco. I got the information from a chick I was dating -- an intern in the Colombian Consulate.
"They don't pay enough for what they expect the authors to do."
An email to management, posted on the company's authors' forum, describes Mr Kohnstamm's book as "a car crash waiting to happen".
"Why did you (management) not understand that when you hire a constant stream of new, unvetted people, pay them poorly and set them loose, that someone, somehow was going to screw you?" author Jeanne Oliver wrote.
Ms Oliver, an experienced travel writer having written for Lonely Planet on eastern Europe, France, Germany and Greece, admitted to sending the email, but did not wish to comment further.
Other writers believe some practices described in the book are widespread. Lonely Planet forbids their authors from accepting gifts or discounts.
This is some very 